We stayed in a great little guest house (Storrbeck Guest House) just 5 minutes walk from the Captain Cook monument.
St. Hilda founded the Whitby Abbey in AD 657, and lived there until her
death in AD 680. She was a remarkable woman, very knowledgeable and wise. It
was she who inspired a lowly herdsman Caedmon, to write down his
dreams, he in turn became a famous poet. The Synod of Whitby, in AD 664
calculated the date for Easter. After the death of St.
Hilda, the wooden monastery was replaced by a 40 cell stone
building, later to be destroyed by the Danes circa AD 866. It lay derelict for
a further two centuries until the present Whitby Abbey started to be built around 1078, after
the land was given to Reinfrid, a Knight. It was around this time that the town
obtained its modern name of Whitby (white-town).
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| Early morning at the Abbey |
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| Dusk at the Abbey |
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| Captain Cook & The Whale Bones |
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN (7 November 1728[NB 1] – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.
In three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved. As he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.
Cook was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. (Wikipedia)
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| Captain Cook Memorial |
Atop the West cliffs of Whitby stands a monument
to the towns historic past; the huge jaw bones of a whale, a monument to those
caught by Whitby fishermen. The whale bones were donated by Alaska in April 2003. The
original Whale jaw bone arch was erected some time after 1853 and is now
displayed in the Whitby Archives & Heritage Centre.
Whaling in Whitby was, during the middle of the 18th century
a common and prosperous trade. It was William Scoresby who made whaling famous
by catching 60 whales in one trip. Whitby has a plaque to William Scoresby at
his former address 14 Badgale which can be visited today. Whaling came to an
end in around 1840, many of the ships had been wrecked. Whaling was a hazardous
job, many sailors were killed, and ships damaged or sunk. The killing of the
whales was done by hand and harpoon, from small boats lowered from the main ship.
The main use of whales was to make oil from the blubber. The last whaling ship
to sail from Whitby was the Camden.
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| Whale Bone Arch |
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| 40 % scale model of Captain Cooks HMS Endeavour |
The next few pics are of the Whitby piers and harbour.
Whitby Piers were first mentioned in documents 1545, when
they were built of timber. There were piers here in the reign of Henry VIII and
batteries and cannon guarded the town against pirates and other unwelcome
visitors. In 1632 the west pier was rebuilt, using stone with a timber frame.
The west pier as we see it today, was rebuilt again and completed in 1814. The
west pier lighthouse was built in 1831 to a design by Francis Pickernell. The
east pier lighthouse was built in 1854. Within the harbour there are 2 other
piers, both on the east side of the harbour. Tate Hill Pier (formerly Burgess
Pier) runs out from Tate hill near the Duke of York pub and Fish Pier which
runs out from behind the shambles where the RN LI is situated.
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| Early morning light over the piers |
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| Evening looking to the West Side of Whitby. |
The next batch of pics are from Goathland (Aidensfield)
Robin Hoods Bay
Midge Hall Grounds in Sneaton Forest
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| Falling Foss Waterfall |
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| Troll under the bridge |
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Little
Blakey Howe
A Bronze Age cairn including a boundary stone
inscribed with the initials TD, which may be a reused prehistoric standing
stone. The monuments are Scheduled.
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Hutton Le Hole
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| Hutton Le Hole |
On the way home, we called travelled via the Moors and down to Hutton Le Hole, its a lovely little village with a stream running through the middle.